A happy discovery from the other side of care-giving, and other letters

Virginia Bell, left, who in 1984 developed the Best Friends approach to help people with dementia, visited with Elsie Jones at Best Friends Day Center in Lexington in 2014. LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER

Healthy ambitions

Recently I have found myself on the other side of the health-care system. Instead of giving help to others, I’ve had to receive help from others. My rehabilitation has been at The Willows at Hamburg, but I’m sure what I have to say goes for many, many rehab facilities in Lexington. The staff, from the top administration down to the certified nursing assistants (CNAs), has all been thoughtful, caring and loving. And so appreciated.

I’ve enjoyed getting to know the CNAs better and have been surprised to find that many of them have learned their skill during their junior and senior high-school years here in various Lexington communities. They take academic classes part-time, then work in a facility and are monitored by knowledgeable staff. I was so pleased to learn that most of them are just at the beginning stages of their careers and have plans to continue on to be physical therapists, occupational therapists, nurses and other productive members of the health-care system.

Recently I read where the greatest form of the arts is caring what happens to others. We owe a great deal of gratitude to all of those who daily give this loving, caring help to community.

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Our crumbling faith

If Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly admitted that President Donald Trump has been an agent for decades and, of course, Trump denied it, who would you believe?

The answer is academic if the question at all gave you pause. If you hesitated, then no matter your eventual answer Trump is unfit to serve as our president. It should never be the case even for a moment that the loyalty of a president is in reasonable question.

Worse, there are likely some among us who would state that they do not care if Trump is an agent of Putin. How far has our faith in our republic been shaken that there would be any among us who would elect Putin through the proxy of Trump to lead us?

The greater question is: How do we heal and repair the faith in our nation and in each other? How do we restore and solidify democracy so this never occurs again? How do we regain the leadership and respect we have lost morally, politically and economically across the globe, and let the enemies of democracy and justice understand they have no place in humanity, as they have chosen instead to be monsters?

Robert Moreland, Lexington

What emergency?

I wonder if everyone remembers that for 24 months the Republicans controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency. During that period President Donald Trump could have declared “Trump’s wall” a national emergency and pushed it through his Republican Congress, but he didn’t. Yet when the Democrats took control of the House he shut down the government and declared the situation at our southern border a “national emergency” within two weeks. So what has changed? The answer is nothing.

Illegal immigration is down more than 50 percent from earlier in the decade. This is a fake crisis manufactured to detract attention from the Russia investigation. Remember when Trump said, “Mexico will pay for the wall?” If Mexico is going to pay for the wall, why shut down the government to get the U.S. taxpayer to pay for it? Remember what former Mexican President Vicente Fox told a Fox News anchor: Mexico is not paying for that “expletive wall.” Even if Mexico did pay it would be a terrible idea — a 5th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. Congress should tell Trump he’s not getting his “expletive wall.”

James R. Porter, Danville

They all fall down

Walls fall. They’ve fallen all throughout history and as such, they really don’t work as they were intended. I really don’t understand the “wall obsession”. This controversy is beyond stupid. The real wall was the one between the federal civil servants who wanted to do their jobs and our citizens who needed federal permits to keep businesses running. Keep that “wall’ torn down so we can continue getting back to business.